This news on it's own, I'd agree with you. But combine with all the table rumors and stories of Apple meeting with the NY times and other publishers and it seems like a little more fuel to the fire.

I'm skeptical the iTablet will do what I want if it comes out, but Apple is the company who can make a tablet device successful if any one can. And if they do there will be a deluge of them from Microsoft and other places that will provide a variety of options.

Size and portability. Current tablet PCS are way to heavy and bulky to comfortably hold and read like a book, or to take notes on in place of a legal pad etc.

They're basically just laptops with stylus screens--and the few I've tried (it's been a couple years) the stylus writing wasn't very responsive.

So give me something with a 10" or so screen, less than an inch thick, with a very responsive stylus screen that's super easy to write on and I'll be very interested.

It really depends on the stylus tech being used. I personally have refused to use any thing that requires the use of a stylus, but isn't based on Wacom technology. All the ones that use styluses not based on Wacom, tend to be a bit poor in quality, with issues like need for batteries, responsiveness, etc. The ones that just have a normal touch screen, like most PDAs have, usually are ok.

although the "free apps remain free" idea they introduced during their release of the 3.0 was a great idea (as they said 'to avoid confusion'), it really did not become that convenient for me and many other users because they would tend to separate the lite version and the full version.

now, this new policy is really a good one. it would beneficial to a lot. however, i really do not immediately think of it as something that would eventually lead to the rumored tablet PCs.

Tying this to "w00t Apple Tablet" rumors is just a crass attempt by Wired / the article's author to drive traffic to the site/article.

You are underinformed my friend. The significance here has nothing to do with the announcement of in-app purchases. The significance is that the old rule was that apps could only do in-app purchases if that app itself costed money. But, obviously driven by market demand/developer pressure, apple has relaxed that policy so free apps can do in-app purchases now too.

That means a free ebook reader like B&N reader, or Kindle, can have in-app purchases managed by the iTunes store. This is, honestly, more notable for helping eliminate the standby Lite vs. Full versions of apps but could easily be used to improve the experience of buying eBooks for reading on an iPhone.

That said, I don't see how this has anything to do whatsoever with the tablet rumors either. But the Apple Table subculture will obsess over the remotest hint of its existence. Just get used to it

That said, I don't see how this has anything to do whatsoever with the tablet rumors either. But the Apple Table subculture will obsess over the remotest hint of its existence. Just get used to it

Probably true.

I think where it comes in is that Apple has hinted that they have little interest in running an e-book store version of iTunes. So having free apps that can sell content opens the door for third party vendors to sell books on the iPhone. People just go the extra mile and list it as more hints toward a tablet device with a larger screen which would be better suited to reading than the tiny iPhone screen.

I think where it comes in is that Apple has hinted that they have little interest in running an e-book store version of iTunes. So having free apps that can sell content opens the door for third party vendors to sell books on the iPhone. People just go the extra mile and list it as more hints toward a tablet device with a larger screen which would be better suited to reading than the tiny iPhone screen.

Odd as it sounds, despite using a number of screen sizes, I almost always come back to preferring the iPhone screen size, in portrait mode, because it reminds me of reading a continuous newspaper article in column layout. And I wouldn't want a pocket reader to be any bigger.

That said I would like an Apple-ized tablet device for home and at the office for a variety of reasons, and definitely would use it for book reading at least some of the time.